The first of two Eighth Doctor boxsets within a month of each other, “Causeway” features the new Charley and Audacity combo of companions and certainly puts the latter through the wringer across both stories! “Lost Among The Stars” is a really fun story, full of a creepy soundscape, interesting world building and a good “how will they get out of this one?” twist, but sadly the end and predictability makes it fall short of something truly great. Let’s take a look!
The story kicks off with the crew of a space exploration ship having their planned journey cut short when their sensors pick up a dead world floating in the middle of the void, the sunless surface frozen solid but beneath the ice are signs of a high-tech level civilisation, ripe for the picking. They head down to steal anything they can, but unsurprisingly run into trouble, and as they set off a distress signal so comes The Doctor (Paul McGann), Charley (India Fisher) and Audacity (Jaye Griffiths) to investigate. The Doctor is, of course, fascinated as the dead world in question is one of those galactic mysteries that he is always thrilled to see solved but as the two crews split up and explore they soon find an insectoid race called the Vecrim who seemingly want them dead, though as it turns out there is a far more deadly foe at work: a fungus whose spores can infect and takeover living creatures minds and bodies and whose existence was the whole reason the Vecrim sent their own planet away from their sun into a deep freeze so it can’t infect the wider universe. Sadly with the TARDIS on hand its not just the universe the “Mycelial Network” will have access to, but all of time as well…
The first half to two-thirds of the story are really well scripted, with tense space horror and infected people and insectoids shambling about like zombies (honestly a much more effective horror story than we got from any of the ones featured on the Halloween set previously!) but the setting and plot are so on-the-nose cliché that you knew a lot of the ideas and twists before they happen. Also the crew, Castor (Nicholas Khan) Aurora (Bee Menabney), Typhon (Robert Whitelock) and Sparky (Obioma Ugoala) in case you’re wondering, were so generic and disposable that I couldn’t tell you who did what over the course of the story. So while I really enjoyed my time with it, it’s also a bit light on originality.
The Continuity:
Why is there a Silurian in the Eighth Doctor’s outfit I hear you ask? Well, that’s for the next story and not just something that somehow happens in this one and I didn’t feel it important enough to address… Unless?!
Not much, the tropes used are far to thin to tie it to a few singular stories. I will say that the previous Charley/Audacity boxset ended with “The Gloaming” that featured a dead world, people in deep cryo-sleep and people being possessed and controlled, which is odd that such similar things would happen so close to each other in such a wide universe and all that…
Overall Thoughts:
“Lost Among The Stars” is two-thirds really fun if not by-the-numbers sci-fi horror story with a good chunk of atmosphere and mystery, but I will admit the resolution to the one big twist was a bit naff and by being so by-the-numbers I was never on the edge of my seat. Still, I’ll take a good trope done really well over anything done badly!
What I intentionally didn’t mention in the non-spoiler bit was that Audacity gets infected and possessed by the Mycelial Network, complete with The Doctor lamenting his companion’s death, the script really trying to make me think this was it. I mean, Charley also vanishes down a dark hole and is expected to be dead but given this takes place in the middle of her original arc we know that’s not happening! On that note, Charley, thanks to the help of a Vecrim, figures out that freezing the fungus is the only way to stop it and given the main part of the “Network” has taken up residence in Audacity’s head it leads to the two companions fighting each other, with Charley coming out on top thanks to freezing her. It’s okay though, as The Doctor reveals that the same technology that helps revive the crew from their deep hibernation not only unfreezes both Charley (who had suffered the side effects of her conflict with Mushroom-Audacity) and Audacity but it also repairs and revives the latter from death thanks to cell replacement and the like. Handy! Audacity having died but been brought back to life seemingly has an effect on her mentally, but she insists she wants to continue their travels as soon as possible…
Hogan Reviews 